And the boys, of course, still screaming from so far away: Rima, Rima, get down!
Tania’s throat and face were moving, not twitching but undulating and worming as something eeled just beneath the surface, the suddenly elastic skin puffing and then deflating, over and over again, as if Tania were growing gills. Trickles of black leaked from the dead girl’s nose and dribbled out of both ears. Fat, ebony pearls swelled from the half-moons of her eyes. A deep ripple worked its way across Tania’s face from right to left, from one cheek to the opposite, skimming under and lifting Tania’s lips as if the girl were dragging a thick, fleshy tongue over and around her teeth.
Tania’s mouth suddenly sagged, the jaws unlocking—and at that, Rima’s brain eked a single, small oh. Then she blanked, her mind blinkering white with terror as a nightmare of legs, jointed and bristled as a tarantula’s, unfurled from Tania’s lips like the spiky petals of an alien rose. Deep in the heart of this bizarre flower, two sets of long, pointed fangs clashed, working from side to side like a spider’s mandibles, grating together with a coarse rasp, like the grind of metal files.
Rima felt a crack of horror, like a jag of lightning, scorch through her mind to burn from her mouth in a high, terrified scream as Tania’s eyes snapped open. The whites were a jet-black sea of hemorrhage. The pupils belonged to a lizard, a snake, the vertical slits narrowing as Tania let go of a shrill, chittering squeal.
“Rima!” There came a hard jolt as someone crashed into her from behind, a solid body blow that knocked her to one side. Panicked, taken by surprise, she flailed, but Casey grabbed her arms and then he was bullying her back, slamming her flat against a far wall, covering her up, using his weight to hold her in place, screaming, “Shoot! Shoot it, Eric, shoot it!”
The cab flooded with bright yellow light, and the roar from the shotgun was so huge Rima thought her eardrums would explode. The blast punched whatever Tania had become in the chest, but it wasn’t like the movies. Instead of flying back, Tania, who also had a new gaping hole where her heart used to be, blundered back to crash against the cat’s transmission box. But she didn’t go down, not the way the man-thing had. Still pinned, Rima watched as Tania made a left-handed grab, steadied herself against a seat, and pulled upright. Another roar from the shotgun, and all of a sudden a spool of guts boiled in wet spaghetti tangles. This time, Tania lost her feet, coming down hard and with a sodden splash. Almost at once, she rolled onto hands and knees and then clawed her way upright again.
“Jesus,” she heard Casey say, his voice catching with pain, and she realized just how much wrestling her out of the line of fire had cost him. Slick with sweat, he was panting, his breaths shallow, his stormy eyes wide with shock. “Look at how fast.”
She saw. The damage to Tania’s chest and abdomen was already repairing itself, the tissues knitting together at a ferocious rate, so fast the skin seemed to boil. The entire interior of the cabin was now alive with squirming tissue, creeping blood. On the deck, she saw the man-thing shudder with a fresh convulsion and thought they had only a few seconds left.
“Case! Rima! Now!” Eric was suddenly there, expression taut. He hooked a hand under Casey’s arm. “Shotgun’s dry. You’re out, too, Case. Come on, we go to go.”
Of course, the guns are out of ammunition. She darted a look at Tania, who was setting her feet. The hole in her chest was gone, and as Rima watched, the last loop of intestine, not pink or white or blue but smoky gray, was sucked back in the way a kid slurped up that last juicy noodle. Even Tania’s nearly severed arm was stitching back into place. Eric and Case could pump out shots all day, maybe even make oatmeal out of Tania’s head and brains, and the end result would be the same. As she crowded after Eric and Casey, she half-expected the jittering man-thing to grab her by the ankle, but she swept past and then she was out, bolting from the cabin, hopping to the snow, running from the nightmare. Wondering if the fog would let them go.
2
“THIS WAY!” A boy’s voice, coming from her left. Turning, she spotted a rust-red truck, its gray-white exhaust pluming in the still, frigid air. Eric and Casey were nearly there already, although Casey was listing now, leaning heavily against his brother. Two other boys stood on the running boards. One, so lanky and thin he was like the slash of an exclamation point, hoisted a rifle in the air one-handed, like a cavalry commander ordering a retreat. “Over here, come on, come on!”
Rima sprinted for the truck. Above the shriek of her breath, she heard the birds, still crowding the dome of the sky, but the grating, mechanical clacks of their cries seemed closer than before. Flicking a quick glance, she heard herself gasp, and for a second, she actually faltered and slowed. Maybe it was an illusion, but was the sky lower? She thought so. It felt as if the glowering, inky sky was beginning to crouch and crowd down. Or perhaps there were only more crows whizzing back and forth, coming together in darker clots before unwinding in screaming spirals to sweep over the trees—where, she saw, the fog huddled. Drawing down the death, she thought, not really understanding what that meant but knowing it was true because the death-whispers she’d sensed before were still gone, taken away when the crows spumed from the snow.
“Come on, come on, move it!” The wiry kid who’d called was already dropping into the passenger seat. “We got to boogie!”
Running out of time. Tearing her gaze from the crows winging over that doomsday sky, she got herself moving. But her chest was fizzing with panic, suddenly filled with a terrible foreboding. The space of this place was being closed up, pinched off, extinguished the way an upended jar smothered a flame.
Eric had just slotted in the two empty shotguns and was helping Casey clamber through the back passenger’s side door, so she rounded the nose for the opposite side. She wheeled around the back door just as the driver craned a look—and she almost screamed. Because this was another boy she already knew, had met before, and she thought now as she had then: What are you?
“Get in!” Then a look of shock swept through the boy’s face, and Bode’s mouth unhinged. “Whoa. What the hell, what are you doing here?”
She almost said, Trying not to die, but the lanky kid—Chad, she remembered now—interrupted. “Oh shit.” She looked and saw Chad staring back the way she had just come. “Aw, Jesus,” Chad said.
From his place directly behind Chad, Eric said, “What?” Rima saw his head snap a look, and then his body stiffen. “Oh God. Bode. Bode?”